OUR LIVES, CHAPTER 34: TRUTH AND PROMISES (PRESIDENTIAL WEDDING, PT 3)

By The Binary Alchemist 2013

Anyone who expected a cry of joy or triumph from Edward Elric obviously didn't know him well at all. If it had not been for the gravity of the moment and the fact that Roy needed him there he would have left the pavilion, headed straight for the aerodrome and told the first pilot at the gate, "one ticket to anywhere but here".

But he couldn't run and he couldn't hide and he couldn't face what he had just done—those soft golden flickers that shimmered around his hands as his fury and disgust at not being able to protect or heal his loved ones caused the last barriers in his mind to finally collapse, the glow of a different light finally breaking free. All other venues closed to him, he bowed his face and didn't say a word.

Faint as it was, Roy could feel it. His hands slid up and he grasped Edward firmly by the wrists, knowing his lover's fight-or-flight tendencies all too well. "Feels good," he whispered. "Don't stop. It helps."

Mei and Dr. Chen were sealing the wound. Roy would be sore for some time but the wound was healed without a scar. When they were finished, Roy tapped Edward on the forearm. "Help me up." He grimaced, but his color was good now and he quickly took command of the situation. "Mei, Dr. Chen—please check on the Emperor. Tell him we will be resuming the ceremony in about an hour. Maes—check on your sister. Tell Aunt Chris I'm okay and deal with the press." He gave the young man a cautioning glance. "You might want to clean the blood off your suit first. Collins-well done. Check in with Sebastian and Breda and start getting the people back into the garden—have some guards in plain sight to keep everybody calm. And I'll need some clean clothing. I suspect they will want what I'm wearing for evidence. Peta—find Chef Ramsay and tell him to get the tables out with fresh food. Bring your book bag." He smiled at the young alchemist. "He might need some convincing."

She smiled warmly at him. "Vell, knowledge iss power…quite a few kilos worth, ven I get a good spin on it." For a moment she hesitated, then kissed Edward on the cheek, then laid one hand gently over his. "This," she curled her fingers around his, "only good vill come of it. I believe dot." Ed didn't even look at her as she dashed out of the tent, embarrassed and a little scared that the professor who had been her idol and inspiration as an alchemy student was now clearly so unnerved by his own power.

Ed sank down on a folding chair, elbows on his knees, head bowed, not speaking. His misery was a tangible thing—and Izumi had no patience with it.

She sat down across from him and folded her arms.

"So Edward….where's your leg?"

###

A military field phone was commandeered and Breda called Radio Capital, Amestrian Broadcasting, The Central Times, and every other major news outlet in the country. A member of a protest group gathered outside Rose Hill had snuck in the day before to help deliver a truckload of live sheep which, it turned out, had not been sent as a joke from Pio Bacalla. A gun was planted in a bale of hay that had been in the transport van and then carried out to the paddock where the sheep had been penned before moving. When the van returned, Richard Terrence Chapman had been on board again. After retrieving his gun, he had passed through the hedges and fired on the wedding party, wounding the President and his seventeen year old stepdaughter. Both had been treated by both medical staff and alchemic healers and were in satisfactory condition and that the wedding would be held just before noon, local time. The suspect was in custody and had been identified as one of the protesters seen outside the President's home.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang in Donal Samuelson's office. "I said one more act of violence and you're through. One of your fans was outside Rose Hill screaming that Mustang was a baby-killer. Mustang's had a bullet dug out of his chest—after it passed through Nina Elric's arm. If it hadn't hit her first it would have killed him." There was no humor in the voice this time. "You might want to dig under the sofa cushions for any stray change. You're going to need every coin you can find." There was an abrupt 'click!' and a badly shaken Samuelson pulled the decanter off his desk, yanked out the stopper and swallowed deeply.

His campaign coffers had just been emptied, down to the last cen.

###

Peta Lobachevsky didn't have to swing her book bag to talk Ramsay into setting up the tables that had overturned in the mad rush to escape the wedding area. Especially when she hinted that she really liked the food and that his artistry should not be wasted.

She checked on Nina, finding her surprisingly calm, sipping tea with Prince Sheng and Dr. Marcoh. "Poppy said he was going to be all right. He would never lie to me. Auntie Mei and Uncle Chen are the finest healer alchemists in Xing—although I think if Auntie Mei needs more convincing that Prince Sheng—" she gestured to a startlingly good looking Xingese man whose heavy black hair was bound at one shoulder by a silver dragon clasp and fell nearly to his waist—"is more than ready to take his qualification exams in medicine, I can give him a credible endorsement." She held out her arm. The bullet had gone right through it, breaking the radius bone. It was still tender and bruised but the bone was healed and the hole in her flesh was gone.

Hearing the sounds of chanting and angry voices, she headed up the main path to the gate. Riza Hawkeye was there, still in her blood-stained uniform and clutching a rifle. Her face was a mask and there was something that perhaps Peta could not lay her finger on but instinctively didn't seem right.

She approached the colonel and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Dese protesters—lissen, I am Drachman. I know from riots and ugly crowds. Dot gun—de sight of it is only going to make t'ings vorse. I show you how it's done."

She stepped through the gates and put her fingers to her mouth, a sharp, piercing whistle once again capturing everyone's attention. "All right, lissen op, everybody!" She smiled at them and clapped the tallest man on the shoulder, meeting him nearly eye to eye. "Zo—you gotta beef with Mustang. Dot's fine. Ev'rybody's got de right to freedom of speech in dis country. A good 'ting, da? But today—is not a politics day. Today iss a day of love—a day ov family. How you feel, " she glanced around the crowd, "iff some azzhole turn up on your wedding day and make such a fuss? And one ov you just shot up a seventeen year old girl—just because you don't like Mustang. She just there for her papa's wedding and boom! Nearly had her arm blown off. What she ever do to you? Someone shoot your little girl, you be plenty pissed, da?" She turned back to the group leader, now looking very awkward and embarrassed. "Hokay. Be nice. Give the family a break an' let them have their happy day. Go home to your families."

She smiled and waved from the gate. "Goodbye! Dasvidaniya! Say hello to your wives and kids!"

Hawkeye, now joined by Charlie, couldn't believe her eyes. "I'll be damned," Charlie muttered.

The ginger-haired girl let herself back in. "See? Dot is vat I learnt from Professor Edward: that beating the snot out of people may make you feel damn goot—but it's not de answer most times. You gotta tink your way out of t'ings." She swung her book bag over her shoulder. "De wedding start soon again. I see you dere."

###

"A simple question, Ed. Where is your leg?"

He didn't look up. "You know what happened."

Alphonse, Izumi and Roy exchanged glances. Al shook his head slightly, his eyes pleading for Izumi not to pursue this any further. She shook her head. She had been holding her tongue ever since Al and Ed had come back through the Gateway and she would be silent no longer.

"Explain it to me again."

"No." When he looked up at his teacher, there was real anger in his eyes. "You didn't hear me the first time I told you?"

If he had been fifteen, she would have knocked him across the room for an answer like that. Instead, she reached out and took his hands in her own. "Edward….you told me—told all of us-that you had decided to keep your automail so you would have a constant reminder of what you had done when you misused alchemy." Her hand moved to his right shoulder. "As if the mirror would not show you the scars on your chest and back-the metal fragments from the connection ring that can't be removed from around your shoulder joint. The scars on your thigh. The suture scars where the wires had been attached to your muscles and nerves. You were thinking those scars were not enough—you had to make yourself suffer more dramatically by refusing a perfectly healthy limb?" She frowned. "I'm not even going to ask you about the story that Winry would be upset if you came home without automail. I think you may recall how she reacted when she heard that. It's a miracle that she didn't knock your brains out with that wrench—it's clear she didn't knock any sense into you."

Ed's face turned a deep scarlet and his fists balled up, but Izumi hadn't even gotten started. "You needed a daily reminder not to repeat your old mistakes?" She pointed at Alphonse. "There is the best reminder of all-your brother's face.

There was a warning in his eyes. "Shut up."

"ED!" Alphonse was shocked. Roy shook his head, amazed at Edward's stubbornness. "Edward," Roy added, "isn't that what you said to our son when he asked you the same question?"

"Brother? You told everybody that you decided not to take your leg back."

Izumi looked stern. "He lied. There is no bargaining with Truth. And I should know."

###

Nobody spoke to Kelley Winchell as the remaining crowd herded back to the wedding oak. Roy's household staff had made efficient work of straightening up everything that was shoved aside or overturned in the mad rush to get the hell out of the line of fire. Sheska had even tied ribbons around anything that showed a stray bullet hole—it appeared that at least six rounds had been fired.

A twentyish young man with dark hair and eyes was walking an elderly, dignified woman back to the oak when he stopped suddenly, staring at her. When Kelley recognized his face, she tried to get out of his way but he blocked her path.

"I was made into a monster," Selim Bradley told her. "You made yourself a monster. That," he sighed, "makes me very, very sad."

###

"There was no bargain, was there, Brother?" Al's voice was very soft, as if speaking to a very frightened child. All these years…and Alphonse had not dared to press Edward for a truthful answer. Ed had paid such a terrible price to bring Al across the threshold to the world that it seemed wrong to pry and possibly upset or anger Ed. But now that Al had seen transmutative energy flicker around his brother's hands there was simply no avoiding it now.

When Maes and Nina has been young alchemy students they had both questioned their father's story. Maes had even confronted his father, "But Dad—it doesn't make any sense. I know you gave up your Portal of Truth—it was yours to give, right? But that still doesn't explain why-"

"Don't try to figure it out, son. Your Uncle Al is back, and that's all that matters." And he walked away from his son and daughter and that, Edward decided, was that.

"But…it's wrong, Nitwit. What's he hiding from us?" Maes wanted to know. He loved his father dearly and the idea that, after such a terrible sacrifice, his father returned from the Gateway unrestored saddened him. "He's given up everything-"

"I know, Tinker. I know. But it's no good pushing it. "He's the only one who knows what really happened before he freed Uncle Al. Whatever it is," she sighed, "he won't talk to us about it. In fact," she mused, "I don't even think he's willing to think about it himself. He's alive, at least, and so is Uncle. I suppose we will have to content ourselves with that."

"Edward, you told me every single word that you remember from your conversation with Truth." Roy chose his words with care. "You told us a choice was made—but you never mentioned actually discussing it with Truth."

Izumi rose and stood before Edward. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Because he didn't, Roy. He didn't ask for his leg back. He didn't ask for it to be left in the Gateway. Truth told him that surrendering his Portal was the solution—the equivalent exchange for his brother's body. Then he told us that as the Portal deconstructed, so did Truth, who said 'Goodbye, Edward Elric!' when it disappeared. And since all he could think about—the one thing he had been living for—was your safe return, Al….Ed didn't notice that he had been tricked…if you can call it a trick." She hugged Edward tightly to her heart, tenderly stroking his messy hair. "If you had been thinking about anything but your brother, you would have noticed three key things:

"One: Truth told you it was God-and that it was you. You saw Truth deconstruct. You did not deconstruct yourself. You are still here. You were seeing an illusion. Truth is not separate from ourselves, Ed. Which leads me to—

"Two: "The sum of all knowledge is written into every leaf and stone, and in the soul of every living being. There is much that we have forgotten.' A very ancient proverb, Ed, The Portal is the Gateway to your soul—and you cannot be severed from your soul. You may forget the sum of knowledge or lose your way, but separating yourself from the Portal within you? That's as ridiculous as tearing out your own heart with your bare hands-"

"I saw it! Teacher, I saw the damn thing deconstruct when I transmuted it in front of Truth—" Ed's eyes were wide with anxiety, as if even thinking about that day was breaking a self-imposed taboo.

"Ed….think about this. What was it that you told me the Father said about how the homunculi were created? The Father wanted to separate himself from his own imperfections. His greed, his lusts, his gluttony, his wrath, his slothfulness, his envy…his pride. He separated those parts of himself and gave them bodies he had created. When you came back to the Gate and told Truth you were ready and confident about giving up your Portal….you didn't really understand what you were giving up. YOU were giving up something far bigger than your ability to use alchemy. You were surrendering your ego."

"What was it that got us into so much trouble in the first place?" Al asked. "Didn't Shou Tucker tell you that you were both alike? That you transmuted Mom for more than just missing her—that you couldn't resist using what you'd learned? Weren't we greedy, Ed? Didn't we feel wrath—weren't we too slothful to learn to do things the hard way, by hand, like Teacher told us to do? I…I think what you had to give up all along to get my body back wasn't your alchemy—it was what your alchemy made you into."

"You were a kid and you had powers many adults don't have," Roy added. "If you give a kid a book of matches there's a damn good chance he's going to start a fire he can't control and people are going to get hurt. I think when you surrendered your Portal, you were willing to let go your power. Not to let it control you. That's something most people can't do. Look what I did with mine. Think of the deaths I have on my conscience…I could have given alchemy up forever—and I didn't. Takes a hell of a lot of guts to do what you did, and you did it because it was the right thing to do."

"Which brings me to three: where's your leg, Ed?"

Ed lifted his head and looked straight into his Teacher's eyes. "Truth has it."

"The exchange was not equivalent."

"I….I don't know."

It cost Ed everything to admit it. Once he had done it, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his soul.

"So, what balances the exchange, Ed?" Izumi cupped his face in her hands, her eyes full of pride in her student. 'Think carefully. You know that you can never be cut off from something that is a part of your soul. You understand now that what you really gave up was your attachment to your power—a lesson in humility. You've grown and matured. If you don't believe that," she gestured to where Nina and Maes now stood in the pavilion's doorway, hand in hand, "look at the generation of young people who you have trained.

"Maes could have used his power to harm the man who shot your husband and child—it didn't even occur to him. Skilled as he is, every intricate device he builds he has made by his own hands. He knows where alchemy has its place in his life. Your daughter wants to change the world—and she will do it without using alchemy to gain her ends—because she made a mistake and she learned from it. You taught an Emperor's son the ethics of alchemy and his only desire is to ease suffering—something that his royal father does not always think of. And you took a girl who had been raised to think herself useless to take pride in her gifts and to use her water alchemy to help others. A generation, Ed, that you trained to follow the code—be thou for the people.

"And on top of that—you sacrificed and asked nothing for yourself.

"One door has closed. A new one has opened. It is up to you to decide if you will choose to use it. If you do, " she finished, "I believe…I know….you will use it wisely this time."

###

"Awright," Knox growled. "Finish the ceremony and cut the damned cake and you're done. I'm keeping you overnight in the hospital."

Roy looked stubborn. "This is my wedding night-"

"—and you've been balling each other for fifteen years. Tomorrow, everything looks good, you can take off to the woods. Screw your brains out, I couldn't care less. You know I don't have much faith in that alchemy shit. And as your physician, I outrank you in a crisis. I have the pull to admit you now. So shut up, Roy and do things my way."

Suddenly, the groom smirked. Knox glared at him. "I know that look, Mustang. You're up to something."

Roy's voice became sly and seductive. "Up to something? That's what I had planned. After all, you can't keep family out of my room, right? And didn't everything start with a night in a hospital bed, hmmmmmmmm?"

Realizing what Roy was implying, Knox smacked his forehead. "Goddamn it! Not again!"

###

"Now," Magistrate Takei beamed, "where were we before we were so rudely interrupted? Ah yes. Oh yes—Roy, Edward-speak your vows to one another—and remember, from this moment, things will never be the same between you, for after these vows you will say to the world, 'this is my husband'."

Roy turned to the crowd. "Rebecca? Would you bring Aunt Chris forward? Gracia? Elycia? You too. Kain, call the gate—I want Hawkeye and Havoc here, and get Breda and Falman from the house. This is important."

It took several minutes, but at last Roy had his team, his aunt and Gracia and Elycia standing by his side. He turned to face them, looking each one deeply in the eyes. "There is an old saying you've undoubtedly heard: 'no man is an island'. My mother and father died when I was little. I had the privilege of being raised by my father's sister. There was nothing she didn't sacrifice to see to it that I was raised well and educated as an alchemist. Gracia and Elycia—I am honored to think of you as my family. Hawkeye, Havoc, Breda, Falman, Furey—it is and has been an honor to serve in your company. You stood with me on the worst days of my life. Stand with me now on the best day. I've been waiting a very long time for this. Thank you for being my friends." He turned to his best man. "Maes? May I have the ring?"

Maes handed it to his stepfather. Roy held it up for a moment and then took Edward's hand. "Edward Elric, in the presence of these witnesses, I commit myself to you and to this marriage. In triumph and in adversity, for all the days of my life I will stand with you and by you. I give you the token of this ring-made from Al's armor and crafted by our children—as a visible sign to all the world of this pledge of my love and loyalty." The steel band, engraved with the salamander array, slipped onto Ed's left hand.

It took several moments for Ed to master himself, owing to what he would later insist was a bit of grit that the wind had blown into his eyes. Then he turned to the crowd. "Alphonse. Teacher. Sig. Winry and Pitt. Come over here, will ya?"

Ed cleared his throat. "I hate sentimental shit. Everybody knows that. And everybody knows that no matter where I've traveled in the past fifteen years, my home was here, with this guy. Eventually I figured out that home was this guy—this guy and Maes and Nina. Y'know, when that son of a bitch shot him earlier this morning, I didn't even know until later that I threw myself in front of him—and I know he'd have done the same for me or our kids or anybody I care about. I've got his back and he's got mine and that's the way it is. Okay."

He took the ring from Nina and slid the ring on Roy's finger. "Okay, Mustang. , in the presence of these witnesses, I commit myself to you and to this marriage. In triumph and in adversity, for all the days of my life I will stand with you and by you. I give you the token of this ring-made from Al's armor and crafted by our children—as a visible sign to all the world of this pledge of my love and loyalty. Okay?"

Roy was grinning back at him. They bumped fists. "Okay, Ed."

'Let's sign the registry. Let's do this." Accepting the pens from Nina and Maes, they each signed their own names, as did Maes. When it was Nina's turn, she smiled at her fathers and boldly scribbled "Nina Mustang Elric", dropping her grandmother's middle name to keep her stepfather's name alive.

"Very well. Roy and Edward, may you strive to meet this pledge of loyalty and commitment in the years to come with the same dedication and love we have witnessed today. As Magistrate and Parliamentary Judge for the Central region and the Nation of Amestris, I hereby recognize Edward Elric and Roy Mustang as Married Before The Eyes of The Law. You may seal this agreement with a kiss."

Before Roy could take Edward in his arms, his new husband grabbed Roy by his cravat, yanked him close and planted a suffocating lip lock on the surprised President that lasted so long several people began to worry that Roy might die of asphyxiation before his wedding night. Roy retaliated by snapping the cord that bound Ed's hair up so that it tumbled down his back and partially obscured their faces.

When they came up for air, they stood locked in a warm embrace for nearly as long as they had kissed. Ed whispered in Roy's ear, "love you, old man."

"Love you too, Now," he added seductively. "Let's greet our friends, cut the cake and then get the hell out of here. We have another hospital bed to destroy."

'Yeah," Ed punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Be sure to put down 'extra butter' on your dinner tray sheet once they get you in a room. Something tells me we're gonna need it…."

….TO BE CONTINUED…